Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Ferguson and the jocks

Everyone has heard about what happened in Ferguson with the cop, kid, and fatal shooting a few months ago. Opinions continue to vary, as they typically do, and now both sides appear to be digging in. Things are not good in Ferguson and elsewhere, across the country, for that matter.

Yours truly would be the first to admit he is totally clueless as to what actually took place on that fateful day and who, if anybody, was at fault. I wasn't there. Didn't see it. Haven't been made privy to whatever "evidence" exists. Don't know. So offering any sort of opinion would come out of total ignorance, and I don't need any more people telling me how dumb I am. Trust me, the line continues to be long in that regard.

But I'm not a world-class professional athlete that can snap his fingers and have TV cameras, microphones, and a throng of breathless, if also clueless reporters show up in 5 minutes who will hang on my every word and trumpet it as gospel.

After his ballyhooed return to Cleveland, along with the free-agent signing of Kevin Love and spiffy resident point guard Kyrie Irving -- Lebron and the Cavs find themselves under .500.

Serena has won a lot of stuff in her career, but she's a super nova waiting to happen. She's only one year younger than her older sister Venus, and the V-ster already flamed out in singles competition a couple years back against good players.

Kobe Bryant reminds yours truly of William Shatner. You know, Captain Kirk, T.J. Hooker, Denny Crane, and all the moronic commercials hawking various products. Anything to stay in the public eye. Speaking of Thanksgiving, Kobe should drop to his knees and give thanks for two things. First, the Lakers were incredibly naive enough to pay him the mind-boggling sum of $48 million over last year and this one, when he's obviously a shell of his former playing self, and can barely stay healthy to boot. And second, that there are a couple teams like the Detroit Pistons and Philadelphia 76ers that are even more pitiful than his Lakers, else they'd be the object of even more ridicule than they already are. They've gone from show time to blow time.

Steve Nash is a native Canadian that made huge fame and fortune in the USA as an NBA point guard. He could ball handle and pass with the best of them. He could shoot, and was deadly from the free throw line. He even won a couple MVPs along the way and narrowly missed out on a third. He's also 40 years old (geezerish in the NBA world), with another whopper Laker contract, and never even made it out of pre-season this year before being sidelined -- again -- with another long term injury. It is asssumed the good Mr. Nash in currently rehabbing and hasn't shirked it all to become a Belieber following the Boy Wonder around. But you never know when it comes to how those pesky Canucks stick together -- eh?

One would think that, given the current or soon to be problems facing the above-mentioned notables in their own spheres of competition -- they would have better things to do than chime in on an issue they are clearly clueless about.

Would anybody pay attention if Lebron were to offer tennis tips to top pros? Serena wanted to talk football strategy with Bill Belichick? Kobe and William teamed up to offer a seminar on how to be humble? Steve wrote a book on the finer techniques of sumo wrestling?

I dare say likely not. We would either scoff or outright laugh at such obvious nonsense from those totally unqualified to speak on such matters.

But they all just had to add their two cents worth regarding what happened in Ferguson.

Most of them probably couldn't even find it on a map, let alone ever having been there.

Yet it never seems to stop such people from mouthing off, even though they show their own ignorance (and bias) by doing so on matters they actually know nothing about.

I want to scream every time I hear/see of a pro athlete, that has likely made upwards of $100 million in their lifetime playing their sport, giving an interview or tweeting about "class struggles" and the like. Their hypocrisy is outrageous.

But the really scary thing is the thousands, if not millions of lemmings that hang on their every word.

About Me

I attended the old Pontiac Central High School and went on to graduate from Oakland University with a Bachelor of Science in engineering. Wound up being an electrician at Pontiac Motors. Go figure.
Now retired, I'm finally beginning to appreciate all those years of forced piano lessons when I was a kid, occasionally make a nuisance of myself with certain editors, and enjoy riding my Harley. I see the same sports things you do, but maybe in a different way. So saddle up. Let's go for a ride.